by Leah Franqui
“Why?” Rachel asked her calmly. “What do you have to be sorry for?”
Swati just shook her head.
“Nothing,” Rachel told her. “Nothing at all. I promise.”
Swati laughed bitterly. “You will be the only person who thinks that.” She took another sip of her water.
“You know what? Screw water. I think we need a drink.”
“I don’t—”
“Oh, I’m sure you can. You might surprise yourself.”
“If I surprise myself any more in this life, I will die from it,” Swati mumbled, but Rachel heard her and barked a quick laugh as she reached up above their cabinets to where she and Dhruv stored their alcohol collection.
“What are you looking for? Don’t you keep the wine in the fridge?” Swati asked, and Rachel smiled.
“So you’ve been monitoring me.”
“You can drink a lot of wine,” Swati said reprovingly, but Rachel put on her most dazzling grin, accepting the reproach as a compliment.
“Thank you. It’s quite an ability. But I think we need something better than shitty Indian wine.” She paused in her search, her imagination running wild. “Hey, out of curiosity, what would you call what you just did? Like, what words would you use?”
Swati looked at her, clearly shocked to her core.
“I wouldn’t ever talk about what . . . what I—”
“I refuse to accept that. There must be some way that you talk about sex.” As soon as Rachel said the word sex, Swati shut her eyes, as if her eyelids could block out Rachel’s voice. Rachel laughed again, like a teenager.
“Talking about—about such things is bad,” Swati said.
“Swati, I’m sorry, but you’re not sixteen. You are an adult! You’ve lived over half a century! You’ve given birth. Surely at this point you can discuss sex. You just had it!” Rachel said baldly, being as frank as she thought her mother-in-law could bear in the interests of clarity. “You know, I’ve had it, too,” Rachel continued reassuringly.
This was not a conversation she ever could have anticipated having with Swati, but needs must, she supposed. And part of her was deeply curious about what the Indian sexual terms were.
“Of course you have—done that. You’re a married woman,” Swati said, her eyes still clamped shut. Rachel almost laughed but controlled herself, as she imagined herself as a blushing bride on her wedding night.
“You’re avoiding the question,” Rachel said, turning back to her search. They had a few bottles of nicer liquor, things Dhruv had picked up in duty-free, things that they were saving to serve to others, or for a special occasion, including a bottle of champagne his company had given him when he had closed a project and a nice bottle of bourbon Rachel had brought with her when she had moved. She grabbed them both.
“This won’t be cold. But whatever.” Rachel began opening the champagne bottle, peeling off the foil and the wire cage holding the bulbous cork in place. “I don’t even really like champagne but it’s for celebration, right?”
“What—what are we celebrating?” Swati asked, her voice wavering, still stuck on the floor of the bathroom. Her eyes cracked open, and she looked up at Rachel like a lost child.
“You.” Rachel opened the bottle with a pop and poured them each a mug of lukewarm champagne. She handed Swati hers and then sat across from her on the bathroom floor. “Cheers. Be a good girl and drink all that up, and then you can have some more.”
Swati looked at Rachel dubiously and took a tiny sip. Her eyes widened, and then she took another one. “This is very nice!”
Rachel sipped her own and frowned. “No, it’s not, but it’s drinkable. If you like this, I’ve got to get you something good. And imagine, this isn’t even chilled!”
“That’s good. Cold drinks make you sick.”
“More avoidance!” Rachel jokingly admonished, pouring Swati more. Swati drank from her mug, deeply, as Rachel looked on with approval.
“I would—I would call it joining,” Swati whispered, so softly Rachel could barely hear her.
“Joining.”
“Yes. In a movie I saw once, they talked about . . . joining, together, and they kissed. This couple. It was the first kiss I ever saw. So that’s what I call it.”
“I see. Well, that’s nice, I think.”
“I don’t know what other people call it, though.”
“You’ve never talked about sex with anyone?”
At the word sex, Swati shut her eyes again, but, to Rachel’s amusement, also took another sip of her drink. Then she shook her head.
“Not even Bunny?”
Swati shook her head again.
“Well, you probably aren’t going to talk to Bunny about this,” Rachel said.
Swati looked at her, her face pale, and then, unexpectedly, she grinned. “Well, she’s always been so proud of Arjun. I suppose I could tell her he did well?”
“Oh, you absolutely should. It’s a compliment, after all!” Rachel laughed. Who knew Swati had any sense of humor? Then a thought occurred to her.
“But what about when you talked about it with Vinod? What did you call it?”
Swati shook her head so hard Rachel thought it was going to come spinning off her neck. “We never talked about that.”
“You’ve never discussed sex with your own husband?”
“No,” Swati said, almost angry. “What is there to discuss?”
“Quality? Duration? Frequency? Preference?” Rachel said, pouring her champagne into Swati’s mug despite her half-hearted protests and then standing to get herself some bourbon.
“We didn’t talk of such things. Vinod did what he would. I did my duty.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly what you did with Arjun today,” Rachel said, although she had a fairly good idea, “but I doubt that it was a duty.” Rachel looked back at Swati, who was suddenly crying again. “Oh, I’m sorry, I was really just kidding! That was a terrible thing to say, I’m sorry.”
“What will Bunny think? I have desecrated her child!”
“I think it seems more like he desecrated you. Swati, Arjun isn’t a child. I’m sure you didn’t, um, steal his innocence, or anything.”
“But, he is married.”
“So are you,” Rachel said, sipping her bourbon and wiggling on the floor to get comfortable. Swati’s tears were drying and her cheeks pink.
“I should not have done this. It was wrong,” Swati said firmly.
“I don’t think you should judge yourself so harshly. It seems like Arjun’s marriage has some issues, and he’s a consenting adult. Obviously I would advise you to pursue someone single next time, but you were just scratching an itch. And it sounds like he scratched yours well, right?”
“This is why we wear dupatta. To hide our faces from questions like this,” Swati moaned around her hands. She sounded like a teenager, and Rachel was, despite all of her own despair, deeply delighted.
“I’m just saying that the responsibility for this is as much his as yours,” Rachel said. “You know, we don’t have to be sitting on the floor of the bathroom. We have a whole apartment we can use, and Dhruv isn’t coming back until next week.”
“Isn’t he? I had hoped maybe you two could talk,” Swati said tentatively.
Rachel looked away and took a long pull of her bourbon. “So had I,” she confessed, and finished the drink. “But we can’t. And we won’t, I guess. So you and I might as well.” She stood to pour herself another.
“The bathroom is comforting. It is small, and the floor is cool. I must take a bath, anyway,” Swati said, her blush deepening.
“You bathe in the mornings— Oh. Right. Now?”
“Later is all right,” Swati said, her voice a little dreamy. “Is there more champagne?”
Rachel almost reminded her that she had gently castigated Rachel herself for drinking wine just moments ago but held her tongue. Swati was clearly on her way to being drunk, and she deserved to enjoy that.
She pour
ed Swati another mugful. “So. Guilt aside—”
“I don’t feel guilt now!” Swati said, and burped delicately.
“Yeah. Drinking has that effect. Shame it’s temporary,” Rachel said sagely, with the air of an ancient guru imparting wisdom to the most tender of acolytes, to Swati, a woman twice her age. “But whatever you were feeling before aside, how was it?”
“It?” Swati said, her voice now distinctly slurring.
Oh dear, Rachel thought. I might have gone too far. “The, um, joining,” Rachel said, moving the champagne bottle deftly out of Swati’s reach. “I’m going to get you some water. You need to hydrate if you’re going all in like this.” Rachel stood and poured Swati some water, reflecting as she did so that in a twisted way, she was being the perfect Indian daughter-in-law, fetching and carrying for Swati.
She handed her the water as Swati hiccupped, and giggled. It was like being in the scene from Gigi where Leslie Caron ran around praising champagne, only Rachel was the elderly aunt selling her niece away as a mistress to a wealthy man, and Swati was the ingénue, sighing and blushing and wasted after a few glasses of bubbly. On a bathroom floor.
“Well?” Rachel said, prompting her.
Swati giggled again. “My mother always told me that the things between my legs were bad things,” Swati confessed, sipping her water. Her nose wrinkled. “This isn’t wine.”
“Finish your water, and then you can have more,” Rachel said firmly, knowing she sounded exactly like her own mother coaxing her into eating her vegetables as a child. Swati drank the water obediently and then stopped.
“I am an adult,” Swati said, looking at Rachel.
“I know that.”
“I can decide what I want to do.”
“You can,” Rachel said, wondering what was happening.
“I know the things that I want. I am sure of them.”
“That’s good—” Rachel said. Swati had the certainty of the drunk now, though, and didn’t let her finish.
“I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”
“I just wanted you to have water—”
“I will have water if I want to have water! I will do what I want, I will, I will have sex if I want!” Swati said, almost yelling. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks flushed again, but this time with indignation, and, of course, alcohol, and she looked younger than her years, and on fire, and beautiful.
“Yes! You will!” Rachel said, handing her the champagne bottle. “Cheers!”
“And it was wonderful. The joining.”
“Oh?” Rachel asked, her eyes dancing. “Do tell!”
“Means what?”
“The details!”
“I don’t understand,” Swati said, taking refuge in her mug.
“It’s a thing, you share the details with a friend. If he was a good kisser, if he did something special, you know? I mean, you can share whatever you like, but, it’s like, I don’t know, a Sex in the City thing, you know?” Rachel said, struggling to describe this. Didn’t all girls tell each other everything? She had used to tell her mother everything before she moved to Mumbai and everything became too depressing to talk about. Before she became so negative and wanted to hide her life from everyone she knew. Before everyone was worried about her.
“How would I know if it was special?” Swati asked, sounding genuinely curious.
“Well, was it different than what you did with Vinod?” Rachel asked. Swati hid her face in her hands again.
Rachel laughed and dashed into Swati’s room, retrieving a dupatta. She draped it over Swati’s bent head, giggling madly. “There, now you’re some village maiden. You can tell me through the veil.”
Swati held it up in front of her face, smiling hesitantly. “He touched me like I was something real,” Swati said haltingly. “Like I was there. He was not careful with me, in a way, but a good way, I do not know how to say it. Vinod, he touched me like you touch furniture in someone else’s house. Carefully, but with no care.” Swati slowly lowered the dupatta and drank her remaining champagne, and then poured herself the rest of the bottle. “It is over!”
“Excellent work,” Rachel said gravely.
“I think Vinod was a virgin. When we first joined.”
“Oh my God,” Rachel said, her mind agog. Two Indian virgins, each as repressed as the other. How must that night have been? And every one after that?
“And I think maybe he did not know what to do more than I did. But I think he wanted to be the one in charge. So he never told me. We were never doing anything together. He, he joined with me, but we didn’t . . . join, together. Do you know what I am saying, maybe?” Swati said, her eyes pleading, begging to be understood, for Rachel to comprehend her.
Rachel nodded. “I know what you’re saying,” she said, and Swati smiled.
“I don’t know what came over me, to do this. I invited him over. I wanted this to happen.”
“Well done!” Rachel praised her. She was amazed that Swati had done it, really, and could admit it. She had never liked her more.
“I did not know I could do something like this. I am not a very bold person.”
Rachel almost spat out her bourbon, like a person in a movie. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have never been a bold person,” Swati said, looking confused.
Rachel leaned forward. “Swati. You left your husband, your life, and moved to Mumbai. You hired a cook against my wishes and demanded that I live with it. You stood up to your friend, and her son, and ended up sleeping with the son. I would say that for as long as I’ve known you, you have been a very bold person.”
Swati looked at her, smiling crookedly. “I have never thought of myself that way. There are so many things I have done that were for safety, so many things that were easy.”
“You inspire me,” Rachel said. “I—I wish I was like you.”
“Not everyone should be the same way. You also came here very quickly,” Swati pointed out. Rachel looked away. “But it has not made you happy, I think. I think you have done many bold things. Maybe it is better to think about something less bold. For you. Maybe you have had enough of bold. Maybe it is time for you to think what is best for you, and not just do.”
Rachel looked at Swati, who, wine soaked and honest, had just pulled out a piece of Rachel’s life for her to see.
“Do you understand me?” Swati said, looking worried. Rachel nodded. She did understand. How did this woman see Rachel’s life more clearly than Rachel herself could? She wanted to feel angry, but all she felt was relief. She had leapt so many times in the last few months, into marriage, into India, into everything. It was a relief to be told she should simply stand, sit, and think. Swati smiled, the drunken smile of triumph at having communicated what you wanted despite the brain’s succumbing to alcohol.
“I am tired. I will not bathe now. I will just go to bed,” Swati said, finishing off her mug of champagne.
“Absolutely,” Rachel said, smiling.
Swati stood, unsteady but upright.
“Do you need help?”
Swati glared at her.
“Have a good night, Swati.”
“You are wrong, you know,” Swati said, making her way to the door of her bedroom. “It is very good champagne.” And then she walked into her bedroom, and Rachel heard her flop on the bed.
Rachel leaned her head back against the bathroom cabinet, ending the evening at home as she had begun it. And yet she was not empty, the way she had been when she had returned home; now she was full, not just of bourbon, but of Swati’s joy, her pleasure, new and tentative as it was. She was full of contentment, full of the knowledge of what she had to do next, how she had to stop finding escape routes from her life, how she had to stop moving, find a place to be.
She never would have thought that her best night in India thus far would involve sitting on the bathroom floor talking about sex with her mother-in-law.
Rachel stood up, stretching her body, and went to pour herse
lf more bourbon. She desperately wanted a cigarette, but she was trying not to be so dependent on things. Well done on that, she thought wryly, pouring herself a large portion of liquor.
The celebration of Swati’s sexual awakening had meant that Rachel hadn’t thought much about the person Swati had had it with, but now her mind lingered over Arjun. He had seemed like such a smug son of a bitch to her, but perhaps that was the perfect person to have an affair with, because you knew you could get out of it with your heart intact. This is certainly revenge on Bunny, Rachel thought, smiling. Well done, Swati. Smart and savage. You are bold indeed.
She started clearing things in the kitchen, putting away dry dishes, washing Swati’s mug, setting things to rights. It was in moments like this when she liked the apartment best, when it was hers to control. Really, it was hers, and Swati’s, mostly. Dhruv had left no stamp on the place. She couldn’t get him to care about it, the furniture, the drapes. He had pointed out that she was the one with time on her hands, which was true, but still, it meant that in this, like everything else, she was alone. We can’t even share an adventure over a couch, she thought, but more ruefully than bitterly. Bourbon had softened the hard edge of her discontent, and she was thinking about him as if she had already left him, she knew. As if all this were in the past and not the present. But it is my present, she reminded herself. It doesn’t have to be, said another part of her, and she shook her head to clear it. Is that just another kind of escape? Leaving something that isn’t working?
It was funny; of the two of them, Rachel would have been the more conventional candidate for an affair with Arjun. But it was Swati who had tempted him, not that Rachel begrudged her. Not the sex, at least. But the companionship, the giddiness, the feeling of another body touching yours, the feeling after sex when your mind is both full and empty—she was jealous of all that.
She didn’t want to have an affair. She wanted her husband. She wanted to feel close to him. She wasn’t jealous of Swati’s being with a new person, she was jealous that Swati felt connected to anyone when she did not. She should talk to Dhruv, tell him about this. She needed to connect with him, to laugh with him, to remember that he loved her and they belonged to each other.